Canyons, Caves and Canines

Hey all,

I hope everyone is well up there. Oh yah, it would be nice if people left a comment from time to time... its becoming lonely writing to outer space with no feedback (thanks).

We found out there was a cave nearby our last work location and we thought one day when we finished up early that we'd check it out. Both of us weren't really sure what we were getting into... i.e. was it a wimpy cave or the real thing. Anyways, turns our it is the real thing. Called the Lava River Cave it is 3/4 of a mile long and quite large inside the cave. The first fifteen feet have ice and it is freezing inside the cave. We went pretty far along the cave and it was really cool and we wanna bring our drums there next time for the full experience.





Last week Lou and I were evacuated from our location (which we luckily were leaving anyways) because of a rampant forest fire just a few miles from where we were at. We got out okay and then decided to take a few days and go up to the Grand Canyon for a visit. It is only about an hours drive from here and we brought our tent trailer and camped on forest service land just outside of the park (feeling like lucky bastards for camping for free while every other tourist seemed to be doling out way too much for hotels). Our first day we went to the IMAX center and got our tickets then went on a good several hour hike in the canyon along the Kaibab Trail. We went probably around 6 miles or so, not sure, but dropped about 1000 feet. It was a very hot day and the air is very dry in the canyon. Anyways, check out some of the cool shots we took along the hike.

(you can spot me on the left hand side of the trail down there... i'm wearing a blue shirt. )
(hot and tired but happy)

After our hike we went back to the tent trailer for dinner and then decided to head to Desert View point which is about a 45 min drive. We went there for sunset and it was absolutely amazing and worth it. After lingering with the tourists for awhile as the sun creeped away, we decided to go to one of the deserted viewpoints (tourists don't venture far from the main lookouts) and we brought our new hand drums. We hung out at the rim playing our djembes for awhile and it was pure magic.




The next day we took the free shuttles around and went from location to location taking pics and took in another beautiful sunset. We quite enjoyed our adventure there and are thinking we might try and camp at the bottom later on in the year. It is quite a hike down and back (though our co-workers did it in one day which is highly recommended not to).



We went back to our new work location which is Sycamore Canyon, the second largest Canyon in Arizona. It is a beautiful area but it is harder work for various reasons (more trees, more species of trees, graveyards of downed trees from forest fires) and therefore harder to make really good coin. We have a week and half down here before a new location though which will be nice. We took a day off a few days ago and went down to Sedona which is absolutely stunningly beautiful. It is red rocks, canyon, arches, and a really nice river surrounded by oaks and sycamore trees. We are probably going to go camping there in a few days. We went swimming in the river and i was the happiest little water baby that there ever was. The heat has been really dragging my energy levels down and water provides such rejuvenation.

The other update in our life is something we don't know if it will work out but we are trying to foster a dog. We both really want to adopt a dog and I fell in love with a blue heeler 1 yr old male in sedona last week. We visit the humane society on every day off we have it seems and it is harder and harder to say no. We both know our reality though and that there is no way a dog would survive in Malaysia, so we found a non-profit called Paw Placements which places dogs with foster homes for as long as the people decide to and provides all the food, crates, toys and vet costs. It saves the dogs from having to live in the humane society until they find "forever" homes and also helps out the human society when they are over crowded. We have a perfect job right now for a dog and having a dog come to work with me would really ease my mind of working alone all day. Although we have radios, spending all day alone out there can be unsettling when there are bears, rattlesnakes and almost 1.5-2 hrs away from the hospital. It would also be nice to provide a high energy dog such as a border collie, blue heeler or lab x with the opportunity to walk/ run around all day outside. Anyways, not to jinx it but I"ll keep you posted. We talked to the paw placements people today at petsmart and sent in our application. They said they will contact us soon and see if they can find a good match.

Anyways,

Love you all and looking forward already to being back in BC by November.